Saturday, December 11, 2010

Wordplay

I've been told by quite a number of people something along the following lines:
Pascal, there may be ten people in the English speaking world who would understand or even care how you are using that word.
Of course, the critique is usually accompanied by the explanation that I am more intelligent than most, and so I can't expect other to know what I'm talking about.

I refuse to believe this is true. Dammit.

For one thing, I never liked being talked down to, and I don't think anyone else does either, so I will assume my listeners will be unafraid to ask for explanations should they be necessary. For another thing, I'm not that quick (something "intelligent" often implies). I'm curious about some things and will pursue them. But I'm also a slow reader by choice, and don't have the time to fully ferret out everything, and so often stop short. I retain for a long time what I've read or seen. I explore tangents to the things that catch my attention. So I've a wide knowledge, not necessarily intelligently applied. If some think me intelligent, it's only because I spent time accumulating knowledge and seeking wisdom, not because it came readily to me.

And here is maybe the most pertinent thing for this essay: our American educational system did its utmost to keep me from learning in breadth and depth in the same manner it has likely done that to you. I want to help any who seek it. Hence this post today. I want to try to bring remedy to that. I want to thwart the ignorance peddlers.

We Americans have been saddled by a bureaucratic nightmare in the eduction establishment. If there are a majority of Americans who do not know or care about their own language, their own history, their own economic system, their own political system, and their own religious heritage, it is because the bureaucracy has found a way to undermine the human thirst for knowledge, and the sense of survival that is served by it. Our anti-human wannabe masters want a lot of us to not care about our own survival. This comes from the not-so-much-any-more sub rosa  Sus worshiping green movement's influence. And destroying the understanding that would aid an individual's survival certainly fills that goal.

Our very language is filled with nuance that tells us a great deal. Most importantly, it informs us of the various ways schemers go about abusing the latitude a free society has gifted them with. That language also is full of information that helps us understand human nature without having to go to a behavioral expert (much to the chagrin of those who make money telling us how we should behave).

Look, a few days ago I had reason to shed some light on the word sophisticated. It seems to have fallen on deaf ears. But it's a word chock full of meaning many have not been exposed to.

I'd like to begin a series called Wordplay. Do you think you might find this interesting?

The damn school system probably made you hate studying vocabulary.
What if I could make it more interesting.
Would you read it?
Do you think it could help you better influence your neighbors? Give me a clue.

14 comments:

  1. Sounds like fun. Believe it or not, we used to take a dictionary, when we had a few minutes, and look up words just for the heck of it, trying to "stump" our fellow shipmates. Vocab can be fun! (Used to argue about words which were used while paying scrabble, but that's another story.)

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  2. "Would you read it?
    Do you think it could help you better influence your neighbors? Give me a clue. "

    No.

    Dissecting the meaning of words so you can get the exact meaning is lost on 99% of the people on the planet. More like 999999 out of 1000000 english speaking people. You can choose not to believe it, but it won't make it not true. And the world passes you by while you try to get more than 100 people to understand the word casuistry. Nobody cares. Nobody.


    Nothing you can say cannot be expressed using a vocabulary of words an intelligent dog can understand. Express your ideas like that, and maybe, just maybe, 20% of the population will be interested enough to listen. Otherwise you're pissing up a rope.

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  3. I've heard it before Og: ,¡│¡¡

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  4. Hearing and listening are two things.

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  5. I used to strain to use the most accurate word when speaking, to lessen the possibility of being misunderstood.
    Made things worse.
    I wasn't speaking the same language.

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  6. I'm calling it wordplay for a reason. If it proves to be useful to anyone, then what you saying is that it be purely accidental -- a bonus. Fine. I'll just have fun, and maybe some will join in. You're free to sulk and glower Og. :D

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  7. No sulking. No glowering. I don't have to do anything but be correct. The average American reads at an 8th or 9th grade level. When you decide to spend any time "Playing with words" to express yourself more accurately, you have decided "I cannot actually do anything, so I'll concentrate on talking accurately about doing something"

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  8. Ed, sometimes you just can't win.

    However, Who wants to have to answer to his Maker as to why he did not try? (See my first wordplay.)

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  9. Playing with words is trying? Sorry. I had no idea the Creator was so lax in his standards.

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  10. I forgot how sure you are that He'll be impressed by your skills with that cricket bat where a word may have sufficed.

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  11. "I forgot how sure you are that He'll be impressed by your skills "

    Now you're just making shit up. If you're gonna insert strawmen into an argument at least try to let them be amusing.

    The fact of the matter is, ten seconds with a cricket bat will do more good than all the talking you will ever be able to do all your life. There is no word you can say to anyone anywhere ever that will change anyones mind who is already a mindless liberal piece of shit.

    At some point you have to know when to cut your losses. At some point you have to know when to shut the hell up and roll up your sleeves. And that point is long past. If you think, for a moment, that talking will fix anything, you are the ultimate realization of the lib's fondest dreams: Someone who will discuss till they're blue in the face, while the libs take away your world, knowing full well you won't lift a finger to stop them; you'll just "Convince" them of the error of their ways.

    Good luck with that.

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  12. Oh Og, you long ago told me where you stand on trying to convince those who don't see. I do think you deliberately miss my point for your own reasons. That's fine with me.

    It would have been nicer had you addressed anything I'd said in this post -- you didn't.
    Or in my first enty, History Wordplay -- you didn't.

    But I thank you for your claim that I'm making things up. I gave my opinion. It was derived from years of observing your writing. I think you now reinforced it. Of course, I could be alone in my opinion. It's only words anyway.

    If it is as you say, and we're long passed words, I only wish you the best. I think they'll destroy me before you, and so I'm hoping you'll get the guys who did it.

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  13. "I forgot how sure you are that He'll be impressed by your skills with that cricket bat where a word may have sufficed."

    Made up. Provably, demonstrably, made up. Don't like it? Tough, you're wrong. I don't miss any point, and you deleted my comment because you know every word of it is true.

    I have more than adequately adressed the point of the post.

    "I think they'll destroy me before you, and so I'm hoping you'll get the guys who did it. "

    That would be because you bring words to a gunfight.

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  14. I see the comment was reinstituted, my apologies; I know blogspot has been sending stuff to spam a lot.

    Spamalot!!!

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